ABSTRACT The production of polymers from ethylene requires the ethylene feed to be sufficiently purified of acetylene contaminant. Accomplishing this task by thermally hydrogenating

acetylene requires a high temperature, an external feed of H2 gas and noble-metal catalysts. It is not only expensive and energy-intensive, but also prone to overhydrogenating to ethane.

Here we report a photocatalytic system that reduces acetylene to ethylene with ≥99% selectivity under both non-competitive (no ethylene co-feed) and competitive (ethylene co-feed)

conditions, and near 100% conversion under the latter industrially relevant conditions. Our system uses a molecular catalyst based on earth-abundant cobalt operating under ambient conditions

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* Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS HIGHLY EFFICIENT ETHYLENE PRODUCTION VIA ELECTROCATALYTIC

HYDROGENATION OF ACETYLENE UNDER MILD CONDITIONS Article Open access 06 December 2021 ECONOMICALLY VIABLE ELECTROCATALYTIC ETHYLENE PRODUCTION WITH HIGH YIELD AND SELECTIVITY Article 09

March 2023 DIRECT PROPYLENE EPOXIDATION WITH OXYGEN USING A PHOTO-ELECTRO-HETEROGENEOUS CATALYTIC SYSTEM Article 30 December 2021 DATA AVAILABILITY All the data supporting the findings of

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science,

Basic Energy Sciences, under award no. DE-SC0000989. This work made use of the IMSERC facility at Northwestern University, which has received support from the NIH

(1S10OD012016-01/1S10RR019071-01A1), the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205), the State of Illinois and the International Institute for

Nanotechnology (IIN), and the REACT Core facility at Northwestern University, funded by the US Department of Energy, Catalysis Science programme (DE-SC0001329) for the purchase of the GC-MS

instrument. We thank S. Alayoglu and R. López-Arteaga for help with the gas-phase IR and emission lifetime measurements, respectively. DEDICATION: We dedicate this work to Sir Fraser

Stoddart on the occasion of his 80th birthday. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally: Francesca Arcudi, Luka Ðorđević. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of

Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA Francesca Arcudi, Luka Ðorđević, Samuel I. Stupp & Emily A. Weiss * Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science, Northwestern University,

Evanston, IL, USA Francesca Arcudi, Luka Ðorđević, Samuel I. Stupp & Emily A. Weiss * Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA Luka

Ðorđević & Samuel I. Stupp * Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA Neil Schweitzer * Department of Materials Science and

Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA Samuel I. Stupp & Emily A. Weiss * Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA Samuel I.

Stupp * Department of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA Samuel I. Stupp Authors * Francesca Arcudi View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Luka Ðorđević View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Neil Schweitzer View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Samuel I. Stupp View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Emily A. Weiss View author publications You can also

search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS F.A., L.Ð. and E.A.W. conceived the project, contributed to the experimental design and wrote the manuscript. E.A.W. directed the

research. F.A. and L.Ð. designed and performed the experiments and analysed the results. F.A., L.Ð. and N.S. carried out the GC experiments. L.Ð. and S.I.S. designed and prepared the

materials. E.A.W. and S.I.S. secured the funding. All authors contributed to manuscript preparation. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Emily A. Weiss. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING

INTERESTS F.A., L.Ð., E.A.W. and S.I.S. are co-inventors of a patent application (no. PCT/US2022/026732) filed by Northwestern University on the photocatalytic reduction of acetylene to

ethylene. PEER REVIEW PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Chemistry_ thanks Sven Rau, Tierui Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Experimental Section, Supplementary Figs. 1–24, Tables 1–6 and references. SOURCE DATA SOURCE DATA FIG. 2 Underlying measured data SOURCE DATA FIG. 3 Underlying

measured data SOURCE DATA FIG. 4 Underlying measured data RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Arcudi, F., Ðorđević, L., Schweitzer, N. _et

al._ Selective visible-light photocatalysis of acetylene to ethylene using a cobalt molecular catalyst and water as a proton source. _Nat. Chem._ 14, 1007–1012 (2022).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-022-00966-5 Download citation * Received: 23 September 2021 * Accepted: 04 May 2022 * Published: 09 June 2022 * Issue Date: September 2022 * DOI:

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